


Charity, Humility, & Faith

by falter



Series: Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations, Or Something [1]
Category: Bandom, Cobra Starship, My Chemical Romance, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Crossover, Heist, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-23
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-08-05 15:38:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16370375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falter/pseuds/falter
Summary: In the Bajoran worship of the Prophets, charity, humility, and faith are said to be the keys to enlightenment.Latinum lasts longer than lust. - Ferengi Rules of Acquisition, number 229Claim 1: Frank Iero/Gerard Way/Gabe Saporta, assholes in love





	Charity, Humility, & Faith

Frank starts to come up with the plan the minute he sees the dabo girl the first time.

That’s the story he’s sticking with, at least. Frank knows himself, knows how he operates, and he never makes attachments that aren’t part of a plan; ergo, Gerard’s been part of the plan since before Frank invited him back to his quarters. 

Frank’s been on Deep Space Nine for three full days before he actually goes into Quark’s for the first time. Heading straight to the target isn’t his style, and never has been. He’s always believed in starting at the margins and working his way in — this time, that meant walking the corridors until they felt familiar, getting a feel for how the fused Bajoran and Federation security forces worked, figuring out where the community gathered and who they left out when they did. Then, closer to Quark’s, feeling for the ways that the station breathes, eats, excretes, drinks, weeps, fucks. 

The fourth day, he sleeps late and stays in his quarters, in the dim quiet, as late as he can. 

The station wasn’t meant for its current use: when it was built it held mostly Cardassian administrators, researchers, and technicians, all housed in quarters that were real, functional homes. There were Bajorans there too, but they weren’t people according to the original design of the station. The Bajorans slept in what amounted to closets or in squalid overcrowded bays. Stored like tools. With the Federation nominally in charge and the Bajorans free of Cardassian occupation, closets and cargo spaces weren’t eligible for use as housing anymore, and the remoteness of a deep space outpost doesn’t allow for the resources to make spaces livable that didn’t start that way. It means most of the old apartments were broken apart into smaller quarters, size based on the presence or absence of hygiene ports; if a room (or two, or more) didn’t have a hygiene port, it had to be grouped with one that did. Sure, overnight visitors stopping to refuel and restock their ships might still opt for a room full of bunks and shared facilities, but on the other end of the scale, Frank hears there are still extensive suites reserved for station personnel and VIPs, left whole. But the subdivided spaces are allocated to visitors according to a combination of group size and luck. Frank travels alone, but luck’s always been on his side. He’s got a sleeping room and a hygiene room, both at the far end of large dog-legged living space. There’s just one exit, but that’s the risk of running jobs on space stations, and he’s made his peace with it.

Frank’s a colony kid. It isn’t information he spreads around. He thinks about it sometimes, though, how his life might have been different if he’d grown up on Earth, or if his family had been Starfleet, or even if Velgya-7 had been more established, farther along than _Gamma Phase: Infrastructure Enhancement_. Someplace that wasn’t a backwater, and that had room for non-essential occupations. Not that he really found a whole lot of appeal in settling down on Earth, or elsewhere, once he left home. 

He doesn’t stay anywhere very long, which suits him, and suits his occupation, such as it is. 

He’s had his eye on this job for a while. He waited a few years for this station to settle down; the chaos immediately after the Cardassians withdrew could have made for easy pickings, but would also mean a lot of competition. And the risk of martial law, no matter that Starfleet wouldn’t have called it that. High risk makes high rewards, but he’s not stupid. 

Frank leaves his quarters for Quark’s late in the afternoon, local time, on the fourth day. 

He gets to the bar comfortably tucked into a crowd of newly arrived ships’ crews and station workers fresh from their shifts, just as he’d planned. He keeps to the edges of groups for a while, close enough to look like he belongs, distant enough to avoid conversation. Has a few drinks, watches a few games. Quark’s is a dabo bar; dabo has never been Frank’s game, but he knows it well enough. He watches the wheels, watches the girls, watches the players. There aren’t any high-rollers this early, but it’s still lively. Plenty of credits changing hands, the occasional slips and strips of gold-pressed latinum handed over by the more well-heeled.

He sits and nurses a drink as the bar gets more crowded, watching the Ferengi proprietors bluster through, the bartenders adjusting their pours for the drunks, the dabo girls flirting and nudging the wheels while their marks are distracted. It’s a pretty decent place, all told, if you like that sort of thing and don’t mind getting fleeced. The bouncers were mostly plainclothes, beyond the couple of high-gravity worlders stationed at each exit. They were doing a decent job of hustling gamblers out as soon as they got belligerent or started looking like sore losers. Hell, they might not even be on payroll — plenty of barflies will keep the peace if you just promise to keep the liquor coming. 

Frank’s still there when the second shift ends and the place fills up again with a fresh set of station personnel before he wanders down the promenade to find some dinner. The food and the walk sharpen him up again; when he gets back to Quark’s he’s ready to try the tables. 

He’s not here to gamble. Not really. But he is here to look like a gambler. He picks one of the more obviously rigged tables with one of the prettiest girls, and lets a mix of hunger and nerves creep into his expression as he smiles at her and sets down his credits.

Frank spends three long hours moving from wheel to wheel, winning a few credits and losing far more, when the girl next to him murmurs a goodnight and a fresh girl steps into her place. It’s not an uncommon occurrence; the girls can only flirt with the kind of enthusiasm and creativity that distracts the gamblers for so long before they need a break. There’s an element of A/B testing to the personnel changes, too — finding which girl and which tactics appeal to which gambler, in case one hits a run of luck. Frank’s seen the systems the big gambling houses use for positioning and directing the girls; this place is too small, too backwater to justify automation, so Quark himself is doing it, in sotto voce orders passed along by whichever girl is currently carrying drinks out from the bar. 

So it isn’t remarkable, and Frank doesn’t look up from the table right away. He’s here to grow a persona, not as a high-roller or a flirt, but as an unremarkable habitual gambler. His focus is on the wheel, on his chances, on projecting a ribbon of optimism threading through a demeanor of loss. 

Frank counts his credits again, wagers half, and looks up at the new dabo girl. Who is a boy. Well, he’s a boy as much as any of the rest are girls: Frank’s age, maybe older, pretty much the same as everyone else spinning a wheel and batting their eyelashes and encouraging the marks to get ever more drunk and distracted and too much of one or the other to be bothered by losing. 

He’s really pretty. 

And that’s when Frank comes up with the plan.

**

Frank’s still there when the place closes, having pushed through the busy part of the night, when the place was filled with drunks and shouting and the unmistakable sound that bars of gold-pressed latinum make when the over-confident set them down on their bets. 

He’s tired, but not tired enough that he isn’t still able to clock the movements of the bar’s staff as they start to close the bar, clean the closed tables, move the chits and slips and strips and bars that the unlucky left behind from the secure caches around the room to the back office, where the vault must be. 

He rubs his eyes, lurches a little getting out of his seat, and smiles a little, ruefully, at the last of the night’s dabo girls. 

“Guess I’m out of time to win my money back?” He slides the barest hint of a whine into his tone; selling the desperation without becoming a threat — or even an annoyance — is an art form.

“Not tonight, baby,” she says. Coos, more like. He’s sold it. “We open up again in four hours, though.” She leans forward over the table, giving him an eyeful and setting the tiny bells that cover her bodice into motion. It’s hard to look away from, by design he’s pretty sure. 

He blinks and manages to look her in the eye with some effort. “You gonna be here then?”

She smiles at him. It doesn’t even look fake. Frank supposes this is the kind of work that attracts people who really do enjoy it, somehow. 

“Of course!” She twists her shoulders, setting off the little bells again. “Can I be your lucky charm?” 

Frank laughs. “Maybe,” he says. “Something’s gotta work, right?”

She’s started to look a little distracted, though she agrees and smiles again. Must be on a tight schedule for enough rest to keep up another night on her feet, looking like a dream and acting like she’s only got eyes for the current mark.

Frank smiles back at her again, and makes his way out onto the promenade. It’s been a very productive night’s work.

**

His plan is to slowly, quietly get close to the dabo girl-who-is-a-boy. He figures it won’t take more than ten days to develop the connection he has in mind. 

It doesn’t work out that way, since Frank trips over him the first time he turns a corner on the way back to his quarters after that first night at Quark’s.

Actually physically trips over the guy, and winds up sprawled on the decking. 

The dabo boy grunts when Frank first makes contact with his legs where they stretch into the corridor from where he’s sitting against the wall, but the sound turns into an alarmed squeak as he scrambles up, trying to break Frank’s fall. 

Not that it helps. Frank does manage to get his arms up, smacking one palm against the floor and twisting, landing hard on one hip. 

“Fuck — what the fuck?” He looks up at the guy, who’s almost managed to stand, and who is leaning over him, hands outstretched between them. 

The guy’s eyes are huge. He’s wearing cosmetics to make them look bigger and darker, and whatever he’s using has smeared a little, streaked over one temple. 

There’s a moment, then, where Frank could swear that everything just stops, except that he can see the guy breathing, and the way his shirt has slipped down his shoulder a little, and how pale his skin is, and how his bright red hair is slipping forward from where he’s tucked it behind his ear. He looks very different from how he looked back in Quark’s — more awkward and unsure, but still delicate and seductive. 

Then the moment breaks, and the guy honks out a laugh that’s one of the least delicate or seductive things Frank has ever heard, before his eyes go impossibly even wider and he claps both hands over his mouth. “Sorry!” He’s still laughing, Frank can tell, even though he’s trying to cover it up. “I’m not laughing at you!”

Frank collects himself, sitting up and leveling a look at the guy, complete with raised eyebrow. “Really.”

The guy slides his hands the rest of the way up his face, covering up his eyes and probably making an even bigger mess of his cosmetics. “Maybe a little,” he admits. “Sorry.” He lets out a really indelicate and un-seductive sigh, and says, “This isn’t what I planned.”

Huh. “Planned?”

The guy lets his hands drop down to his sides, and looks up toward the ceiling, sighing again like he’s carrying the weight of the worlds. He twists one foot inward, cocking his hips a little. Frank doesn’t not take the opportunity to look. 

The guy is still staring at the ceiling. “I never do this?,” he starts, before he fidgets again, setting his foot back square with the rest of him and looking down at Frank. “I’m nervous, I think. Because I never do this.” He rubs at his own jawline and bites at his thumbnail before pushing his hand through his hair. “I just. Want to get breakfast?”

Frank really does have the most amazing luck.

**

Breakfast is a pretext. Of course. 

They do buy food, bowls of fruit and soft protein covered in local seeds from a stand that’s not quite ready to open yet, and eat while they walk through the half-deserted station corridors. But they haven’t gone far when the guy — Gerard, he says — leans into Frank’s space and they’re kissing, and then Frank’s got him pressed up against a bulkhead, and Gerard is pulling Frank’s hair and Frank is mouthing at Gerard’s collarbone and Frank has no idea how he managed to get them both back to his quarters before they were actually fucking. 

He also has no idea what happened to the bowls of food, though he thinks, as he sucks a little on the skin at Gerard’s hip, that he can taste a little of the juice there. 

**

“Mmmmm,” Gerard stretches, blinking his eyes open and turning his head to look at Frank. Frank’s been awake and thinking for a while. Thinking, and looking at Gerard, sprawled across the bed, looking soft and pale. “Morning?”

“Afternoon,” says Frank. 

Gerard smiles at that, a little rueful, and curls his body toward Frank. “Close enough.”

“Can I ask you a question?” Frank has a lot of questions, actually, but some of them would tip his hand, and others need him to build a little trust, get Gerard to drop any guard he’s got up. 

“Is it about whether I want some coffee?” It sounds like a joke, but Gerard looks really hopeful.

“No. Think you just answered that, though.” Frank gets out of bed. “Gimme a minute.” 

It doesn’t take him long to program the little pay-as-you-go replicator in the main room, and he makes three cups to cover his bases: one black, one white, and one white-and-sweet. Gerard sits up to make grabby hands, eventually taking two of the cups and hunching over them. Frank’s mildly grateful he wound up with the black, but Gerard is entertaining enough in his appreciation that he’d have drunk any of them. He’s just lucky Gerard’s only got two hands. 

Frank settles himself back into bed, and Gerard immediately wriggles around until he’s leaning against Frank’s side. He’s making little quiet hums of appreciation at the coffee, though Frank knows it’s not very good. Replicated oils just never taste right, and coffee suffers for it. 

“So,” he starts again. “How’d you wind up a dabo boy?” 

Gerard straightens abruptly and turns toward Frank, looking offended. “Dabo **girl**. The job title is dabo girl, Frank.”

“Sorry? I just thought you were — I didn’t mean to assume —“

Gerard actually sets one of the coffee cups down to flap a hand between them, like he’s waving away Frank’s words. “Oh, the title has nothing to do with gender! Or at least my gender.” He twists his fingers in his hair and sips from the cup he’s still holding. “You have to respect the words behind the translator, though, and the Ferengi are pretty binaristic? I mean, jobs and titles are male or female, you win or lose, you’re inside or outside, stuff like that.” He takes another sip and looks thoughtful, pulling his fingers out of his hair and rubbing at his cheek. “Making the term opposite, or at least their definition of opposite, makes it an insult. Like…a pretty nasty one.” He frowns at Frank, eyes big and earnest. “So I’m a boy who is a dabo girl. Okay?”

“Okay,” says Frank. 

Gerard smiles, big and delighted. There are still faint smears of cosmetics on his face, and seams from the sheets, and his hair is a tangled mess. He looks ridiculous and ridiculously beautiful, Frank thinks. 

Gerard settles back against Frank’s side, discarding his empty cup and picking up the one he had set down. 

“I like making people happy.” Gerard says it softly, and it takes Frank a moment to connect the statement to his question. “I like how I can do that, keep them happy even when they lose, or drink too much, or when they come to Quark’s looking to forget the things they’re sad about.”

Frank hums a little at that, and strokes Gerard’s shoulder. His skin is so soft and smooth. 

“Anyway, I’m good at it.”

“You are.” Frank hooks his thumb under Gerard’s chin and tips it up, so he can kiss him, and everything goes suddenly from sweet to hot. Gerard twists toward him, and they both slide against each other and down the bed.

** 

When Gerard comes out of the hygiene room, he’s fully dressed and there’s no trace of last night’s cosmetics left on his face and he looks determined.

“This was fun,” he says. “Thank you. It was nice meeting you.”

Gerard extends his hand toward Frank, and Frank looks at it between them, puzzled, then back up at Gerard’s face.

Gerard sighs and his mouth twists a little to the side. “I can’t do this again, Frank. You’re really pretty, and I like you a lot, but this has to be a one time thing, okay?”

Frank feels surprisingly hollow. “Okay.”

Gerard steps forward and grabs Frank’s hand in both of his. “Please understand. The whole point of dabo girls is that we’re unattached. We love everyone and no one, that’s how it works.” 

“Okay,” Frank says. He’s angry at himself, distantly, for thinking it would be that easy to get someone on the inside. And a little disgusted with himself for how quickly **he’d** become attached. That he’d become attached at all. 

Gerard’s face falls, and he leans in quickly to kiss Frank. Frank doesn’t react, and Gerard straightens a little, standing still and looking at him. 

“Sorry,” he whispers, and leaves.

**

That afternoon, Frank heads back to Quark’s. He doesn’t bother pretending to be part of a group this time; the staff will have already clocked him. 

He tries a few tables, making tiny bets, before he retreats to a corner to nurse a drink and watch the other gamblers. He recognizes some of them, and some of the dabo girls, and he starts sizing up the girls as potential patsies. 

Just like the evening before, he walks down the promenade to clear his head and get some dinner. 

When he gets back, Gerard is working one of the tables. His hair is glossy black and piled into loose waves, gathered at the crown of his head. When he moves, it catches the light and reflects deep iridescent blues and greens. He’s wearing something layered in blacks and grays, and the cosmetics around his eyes are a deep wine red that make his eyes look impossibly green. 

Frank doesn’t look at him. There’s nothing to gain there. 

He plays out the rest of the night much like the night before, flirting with the girls who flirt with him, asking a few names, watching the high rollers win and mostly lose, and not leaving until he’s nearly the last one there. 

**

The first time he turns a corner on the way back to his quarters, Gerard is there. 

Frank stops. He doesn’t speak. 

Gerard has his arms folded in front of his body, and his hands are in tight fists. He’s shifting from foot to foot. It’s a strange contrast with his elaborate hair and sophisticated costume. 

“I couldn’t stop looking at you tonight, Frank,” he says. “I don’t think this is going to work.”

Frank keeps his face stony. The last thing he needs is drama. Drama attracts too much attention. 

Gerard loosens his posture, peering at Frank and fidgeting with the hems of his garment. They stand there for another minute looking at each other before Gerard lets out another dramatic sigh and says, “How are you at keeping secrets?”

Frank starts to smile before he can stop it. Secrets. Gerard has **no idea** how good Frank is at secrets. 

**

The next four nights they avoid each other at Quark’s, Frank leaves on his own, and Gerard sneaks back to Frank’s quarters. 

The dabo girls have their own rooms, a dormitory behind the bar’s offices. There’s security, and a bed-check, but they cover for each other, and the bouncers turn a blind eye to protect their own relationships. 

The morning after the fourth night, Frank keys his quarters to allow Gerard full access, and Gerard moves his possessions in. 

Gerard doesn’t own much, but Frank travels with so little that Gerard’s few things make the quarters feel different immediately. Cosmetics are piled haphazardly onto a ledge in the bedroom, and clothing in the living space. Gerard has paper notebooks as well, big ones the size of a tabletop and little ones the size of his palm; they wind up scattered wherever Gerard was last writing or drawing. Frank hasn’t written anything down in a long time; it’s too risky to leave evidence. It’s strange listening to the sound of the stylus against the surface of the paper. 

Gerard also has a number of projects he keeps in a pile under the small table in the living space that Frank is fairly certain was meant for meals. They are mostly costumes he’s adjusting or enhancing, and the one he works on the most is a coat.

The coat is long and loose, the fabric pale with a metallic finish. The effect looks a bit like a thick layer of frost over ashes. The material is opaque but so light that it moves with a breath. Gerard tries it on, over and over as he tweaks it, affixing tiny antigrav repulsor discs to the hem and strategically along some of the seams.

It takes weeks for him to finish, but when it’s done and he wears it, the fabric swirls gently around him, like mist or smoke. Gerard’s delighted with it, wears it all of the time to and from work, whenever he’s in public, and sometimes Frank catches him watching himself in the mirror, the way the coat obscures and reveals and obscures again. It makes him look mysterious, deep and unknowable, but just for a moment, until he sees Frank watching and laughs, giddy and delighted, sweet and guileless again. 

You can’t con a con-man, is the thing. So Frank knows he’s Gerard’s mark, after a fashion, and that’s why he’s so drawn in, why he feels so protective. Why he makes sure Gerard isn’t trying to survive his shifts on the sweets the gamblers tempt him with, the leftover delicacies the bar lets the girls make a meal of during their shifts. Why he programmed his quarters to Gerard’s ID so he has a quiet place to sleep whenever he wants, not just when Frank can let him in. Frank knows that when he wakes up to Gerard looking soft-eyed and sweet and like Frank is everything he wants in the world, that’s the trap. He doesn’t mind, though. 

Anyway, since he’s walked into it knowingly, it’s less a con and more a transaction. 

**

Frank knows he’s got competition the minute he first sees the priest. 

That’s the truth. Frank’s known how it goes since about a week after he first left home, green as anything and his boots still smelling of Velgyan soil: priests are always running a con. Some of them are just more focused than others. This one, though — this one’s clearly working more than one angle. 

When the priest shows up at Quark’s, Frank is sitting at the bar, like usual, a month into establishing his identity as a down on his luck barfly without enough credit to gamble, but enough love for the tables to watch anyway. Gerard slips him denatured drinks — Frank’s told him he likes to watch him work, and they both know if Frank doesn’t steadily buy from the bar he’ll be out on his ass. Gerard had suggested it, actually — almost shy, whispering secrets about his past to Frank in the dark: how he doesn’t drink now because of something that had happened years ago when he’d had too much. How he lost his taste for it; how he could help Frank this way, let him stay present and stay safe at the same time. Frank doesn’t miss that Gerard never says exactly what happened to him, back when he drank. He doesn’t miss the way Gerard trembles just a little when he tells the story either, though, so he says yes. 

It means Frank is cold sober when the monk — priest — whatever — makes his entrance. 

He’s tall, dark-haired and slender and draped in heavy rust-colored robes, and he sweeps his arms wide as he enters. He pauses long enough to catch the eyes of everyone in the place, as the dabo girls look up at the movement, and their customers look up to see why they aren’t hold the girls’ attention anymore. 

Frank watches the guy take a deep breath and close his eyes before he speaks. His voice is smooth and carrying, and he says something in Bajoran that the universal translator doesn’t bother with, so it must be marked sacred in the database. 

Theatrical asshole. 

The Bajorans in the place look respectful, though. The ones that don’t look a little dewy-eyed. The fucker’s got the kind of charisma Frank would give his right hand for. 

It’s not that the Bajoran spiritual types avoid Quark’s. Monks come in all the time — that’s one of the things Frank’s decided he likes about Bajor, the way they treat their faith as a regular part of life. The ones that come to Quark’s just usually act more normal. This guy is attracting attention to himself in a way that Frank thinks can only mean a couple of things, all of them bad, annoying, or inconvenient.

**

A few mornings later Frank’s wrapped up in his thoughts, and Gerard is uncharacteristically quiet, curled into a chair and drawing in one of his notebooks in between bouts of staring into the middle distance. 

It’s not a given that the priest has goals that are anything like Frank’s goals, but he’s been at Quark’s every night, talking and smiling, handing out platitudes and growing a retinue that follows him from table to table, filling his drinks and listening to whatever he has to say. 

He’s called Ranjen Sapohr. Frank’s picked up enough to know that Ranjen is a title, a rank. The middle management of the Bajoran faithful. He’s looked Sapohr up on the station directory as well — it didn’t tell him much, beyond that the guy had arrived the day before he came into Quark’s and that he lists his occupation as “Seeker of the Truths of the Prophets.” 

What an asshole, seriously. 

Gerard eventually retreats to the hygiene room, preparing for work. Frank cues up two cups of coffee — light and sweet for Gerard, black for himself — and moves to the table to set them down. 

Gerard has left his notebooks open on the table, though. He’s usually fairly careful to close them up to protect the paper sheets, but not this time. The page the biggest notebook is open to is a drawing of two of the dabo girls, laughing together. It’s good; Frank recognizes them easily. They’re in what looks like it must be the space behind the bar. The two women look alive and vibrant in the drawing, but the really remarkable thing is the incredible detail of the background. Gerard has drawn it with fine, dark lines, and Frank looks closer, thinking that he could probably do inventory of Quark’s backstock direct from the page. 

Shit. 

Frank takes the two coffees into the bedroom instead, sets one down on the floor, and leans back on the bed drinking his own. It’s only another minute before Gerard opens the door and comes back out. 

His hair is a mess of white-gold today, piled up in a way that almost looks conservative. His cosmetics are pale violet, and he’s wearing a close-fitting, deep green garment with a barely visible shimmering violet overtone. They must expect some crews of gamblers with broader-spectrum vision tonight. He looks amazing. 

Frank sits up and gives him a long admiring look, until Gerard smiles, pleased. Then he hands him his coffee, and the smile gets wider. 

Frank lingers in the bedroom for a moment — waits long enough to hear a muffled sound of dismay, and then the quiet noises of Gerard closing his notebooks and putting them out of the way. Frank’s never expressed an interest in their contents, but he knows Gerard considers them private. Very private. 

When Frank walks out of the bedroom, Gerard is pulling on his coat, and Frank moves to settle it into place over his shoulders, taking the opportunity to drop a kiss under his jaw. 

“I’ll see you soon, gorgeous,” Frank whispers.

**

As soon as Gerard leaves, Frank throws the security lock on the door and gathers up the notebooks as quickly as he can, piling them onto the little table. 

All of them are full of drawings. And all of the drawings are of the backrooms and offices at Quark’s. It’s a matter of minutes before he finds one that shows the door to the main safe, well enough that Frank can figure out the type, manufacturer, and maybe even the year of installation.

Jackpot.

**

That afternoon, Frank heads back to Quark’s. Like he does every day. 

He stands near a few of the dabo tables, but he just smiles and shakes his head when the girls try to get him to place a bet. He watches the earliest gamblers, then finds a seat at the bar. It’s too early for Gerard to come on shift, so Frank catches the eye of one of the girls and orders a long drink he can nurse for a while. 

It’s not even time to think about getting dinner when he hears Gerard honk out a laugh, stifling it quickly, somewhere nearby. Someplace within the bar, not the staff area. There’s only one place he could be, that Frank wouldn’t have noticed him: the private rooms just off the main bar. Where the girls sometimes entertain gamblers privately. 

Frank’s got a strange sick feeling in his stomach. He ignores it. 

He turns a little in his seat so he’ll be able to see anyone coming in or out of the private room, and settles in.

**

It’s long past when Frank usually takes his walk and gets some food when his surveillance pays off, and someone exits the room. 

Ranjen Sapohr. Of course. 

Then Quark heads into the room. 

Then Quark follows a rumpled, sleepy-looking Gerard out of the room, and ushers him toward the back. 

Frank orders another drink.

**

It’s always interesting, Frank thinks, watching Gerard work. The ways Gerard is directed to do his job, and the places where he’s probably taking initiative. 

Gerard is always spinning the dabo wheel at the tables where the gamblers might include an empath. He’s ridiculously earnest and his emotions seem to show transparently in his expressions, which is surely part of why. Lots of the other dabo girls have a slightly hard-edged affect; a boundary informed by what they see and do. Not Gerard, though. How he can be so innocent is baffling. Perhaps he really doesn’t know the games are rigged, or at least doesn’t know how they are rigged. 

Quark also clearly enjoys having Gerard in the mix, loves it when the customers try to complain that they want a female dabo girl. Frank is convinced he finds Gerard useful for annoying the customers he doesn’t like, and for confusing or distracting the ones he thinks Gerard will puzzle. 

Tonight, Gerard is mingling among the gamblers at the busiest table. Not spinning the wheel himself, but trailing his fingertips across their wrists, laughing quietly at their jokes, fluttering his eyelashes and leaning into their space. Whispering into their ears. 

Sapohr is among them, of course. 

As it gets later, and the crowd thins, Sapohr and his hangers-on are the only ones left at the table. Gerard moves behind the wheel, the other girl takes her leave. 

Frank’s hungry, and tired. And drunk. There’s still a twisting in his gut. He heads back to his quarters early. 

**

Frank wakes up the next day with a miserable hangover, and Gerard perched on the edge of the bed, watching him. 

He groans and closes his eyes and takes a minute to think about what an amateurish idiot he is. When he looks back up, Gerard’s face has crumpled with worry, and he’s reaching out a hand to stroke Frank’s hair back from his forehead. 

“Are you…” Gerard pauses, frowning. “Frank, are you sick?” 

That would be the easy way out. That’s not how Frank does things. He clears his throat, and winces. “Hangover.”

“Oh.” Gerard pulls back, then something in his eyes softens. “I didn’t get your drinks last night, did I?”

“Not your fault.” God, Frank needs his head to stop pounding and his stomach to stop lurching. And everything to get a lot quieter and darker. Maybe Gerard would be willing to shove him out an airlock? 

But when he looks up, Gerard’s gone. 

So much for the sweet relief of explosive decompression. He closes his eyes and pulls the sheet over his head. It’s a distant second-best.

“Hey. Hey Frank,” Gerard is back, and whispering. It’s nothing like the whisper he uses at Quark’s, smooth and sweet. It’s raspy and warm and a little nasal. Frank lets him pull the sheet back down, until he can see Gerard, crouched next to the bed and holding out a bottle of what looks like real juice and a little packet of headache powder. 

When he’s drunk the juice — sweet and tart and totally unfamiliar, must be something local — and taken the painkiller, Gerard produces a cup of coffee, and carefully crawls up into the bed with him. 

Gerard is wrapped in his coat, with nothing on underneath it, and Frank doesn’t have the energy to find that odd or even erotic because it feels amazing, cool and silky where it’s between them, but no real barrier. Gerard’s body against his is comforting, and Frank tries not to think about that too hard. He drains the coffee cup and falls asleep with Gerard stroking his temples and singing him a quiet song without words. 

**

“You know that priest guy at Quark’s?” Frank’s feeling nearly human after a long nap, or close enough to it that he feels like he can talk about this.

“Gahril?,” asks Gerard. He’d slept too, and is hurriedly washing down some sort of pastry with his second cup of coffee while he waits for Frank to be finished with the hygiene room. 

Frank finishes drying himself and steps back into the bedroom. “You know, that Sapohr guy.”

Gerard smiles at him. “Right, Gahril. Ranjen Sapohr Gahril. Gahril’s his personal name.”

Frank can feel his stomach trying to give a little twist again at that, and he takes a deep breath and smiles right back at Gerard. “Huh. Okay, Gahril. I haven’t really talked to the guy.” Frank pauses to pull his shirt on. “You like him?”

Gerard drops a kiss on Frank’s ribs before he manages to cover up, surprising him into a laugh. 

“Sure. He’s polite, and he’s always saying things about the Prophets that sound like poetry, and he gets philosophical instead of angry when he loses all his latinum.” Gerard moves past Frank to clean up and get ready for his shift, closing the door between them. 

**

Frank tries again when Gerard comes back out, dressed in something the color of wine that looks like it might be made entirely of ribbons. His hair is stark, glossy white, looped back with delicate braids, and his cosmetics are glossy black. He looks like a piece of art for a moment, something very expensive, until he ruins the effect by wrinkling his nose at his cold coffee. 

“Gerard, I just wanted to say something serious, okay? About Gahril.”

Gerard looks up from the coffee cup, looking curious and attentive.

“Here’s the thing,” Frank says. “That guy, he’s got resources. He can treat you right.”

Gerard looks stricken. This isn’t going to plan. He opens his mouth to speak but then stops. He starts again. “Are you breaking up with me?”

“No!” Frank surprises himself when the word comes out overly loud, too emphatic. He tries again, quieter, “No, no, no. Never.” 

Gerard is looking at him, suspicious and confused. 

This is not what Frank meant to happen. Not at all. He needs Gerard. For the plan. He steps forward, takes Gerard’s hands in his, kisses the insides of his wrists, whispers it again. “Never.”

Gerard starts to smile again. It’s a little watery, but it’s there. 

“I just want you to have everything you deserve. I want you to know that if Sapohr offers you something that you want, you should take it. I want you to have it.” He kisses Gerard carefully on his cheekbone, gentle so he doesn’t displace the cosmetics. “I’ll be here waiting for you, whenever you get back.” He pauses just a little for effect. “Whenever you get home.” 

Gerard’s expression has gone soft and happy again, and he nods. “Okay, Frank.” He shakes himself a little and drops his own careful kiss at the corner of Frank’s mouth. “Thank you. That’s — well, Quark has been wanting to assign me to Gahril, to cultivate him. I started yesterday, but I wasn’t sure — how far to let things go?”

Frank schools his expression as much as he can. “Let him treat you right, baby. Let him give you everything you want. I’ve got you once you’re done at work, and I’m lucky to have you.” 

** 

It only takes a week before Frank starts to find drawings in the notebooks of Sapohr’s quarters and belongings. 

Perfect.

**

Turns out, Sapohr owns a lot more remote surveillance and imaging tech than you might expect of a priest, self-described “seeker” or no. Not to mention site-to-site transport beacons. 

**

Gerard gets home late now that he’s assigned to Sapohr. Late, and usually bearing trinkets, jewelry, the occasional slip of gold-pressed latinum. He leaves it all in small piles around their quarters.

Frank doesn’t mind. It gives him time to memorize floor plans, security scanner placement, and all the other details he culls from Gerard’s notebooks.

Confirming Sapohr is planning something introduces an unpredictable variable into his schedule. The twice-yearly Ferengi depository ship’s arrival was his original deadline — hitting Quark’s as close to the pickup date as possible will mean the biggest take. Frank doesn’t have any way to know exactly when it will arrive, though he is confident it won’t be for at least another three weeks. 

If Sapohr knows more than Frank about the pickup schedule — and he might, given the way that Quark has been fawning over him — then Frank has all three weeks to act, and maybe a little more. 

If Sapohr knows less than Frank about the pickup schedule, though, he could move at any time. 

**

Frank’s comfortable here. That’s dangerous. He likes the constant activity on the station, he likes the food, he likes his quarters. He likes Gerard, if he’s being honest with himself. 

Hell, if he’s being honest with himself he can admit that if Sapohr wasn’t clearly planning something, if he was on the level, that he wouldn’t even mind him so much. 

If he’s being brutally honest, he can admit that he’s nursing a germ of interest in Sapohr. That might just be grudging admiration for what he can deduce of the guy’s plan, but if they were different people, Frank and Sapohr? Well. They have Gerard in common. That’s not nothing. 

Frank’s too comfortable here. 

He’s ready. He’ll make his move within the next ten days. 

**

Frank spends the time he has left — every moment he can manage — with Gerard. Every moment Gerard can manage, at least. 

He’s surprised at how much he wants to take Gerard with him, to spirit him away. 

He’s not entirely sure Gerard would agree to come with him, though. They don’t talk about it, but he’s pretty sure Gerard loves him. There’s evidence for that: if it was just convenience and great sex, Gerard wouldn’t watch Frank so carefully, sweet and attentive. Gerard wouldn’t take steps to be sure that Frank could spend nearly every night at Quark’s, almost every hour the place was open. 

So yes, Gerard almost certainly loves him. And if Frank had space in his life to love anyone, maybe he would love Gerard. 

But he doesn’t. And even if Gerard does, Gerard also undeniably loves his job. Frank’s not sure if Gerard would prioritize Frank’s happiness over his thing for making people happy in general. 

The important thing is that Frank’s not leaving Gerard holding the bag. He’s protected Gerard by protecting himself from Gerard. If it all goes to plan, there will be nothing to connect Frank to the heist, nothing to connect Gerard to Frank. Nothing, therefore, to connect Gerard to the heist. Taking Gerard would mean leaving tracks. 

Frank’s sticking with his original plan. It’s fine. It’s going to be a success, and Frank will be rich, and he will have gotten away with Ferengi money. As far as he can tell, no one else has ever managed that. It’s going to work, he’s going to win. That’s the only important thing.

**

When the day comes, Frank leaves Gerard sleeping in their bed. He’ll be out for a while yet, the combination of a long night with Sapohr and an energetic morning with Frank. 

Frank is still as silent as he can manage, gathering up all of Gerard’s possessions — notebooks, jewelry, cosmetics, clothing, trinkets — and packing them into a storage crate. He leaves Gerard’s coat and the clothes he came home in, so he can get back to the dabo girls’ dorm. The crate goes to the closest set of traveler’s lockers to Quark’s, and Frank sends a time-locked anonymous message to Gerard’s profile in the station database with the retrieval code. His quarters will stay assigned four more weeks, but Gerard’s ID won’t give access again after tonight. 

He uses the maintenance hatch one deck up from Quark's to get into the dabo girls’ dorm himself. It’s quiet, and dark, and it isn’t hard to find the hallway he knows is disused from Gerard’s drawings. From there, through the wall, he can access the back of the console that controls the independent control system for the offices, and interrupt power to automated security long enough to spoof its time settings. From there it’s just a matter of crawling through a few more maintenance hatches and dropping into the correct room, cracking the big safe, and using his own site-to-site rig to transport everything to the dockside storage crates he’d bought when he arrived. 

Frank’s jittery with success, but he takes the time to put the safe back the way he found it and reset the security system on his way out. 

He thinks, for just a moment, that it isn’t too late to go back for Gerard. Wake him and steal him away. But that’s still a bad idea. 

Frank sticks to the plan, strolls down to the docks, files for a departure window, and hires a couple of laborers to move the crates into his ship’s hold.

He’s on his way and nearly out of the system when he decides he can throw the ship on autopilot and admire his take. 

When he codes the crates open, though, they’re empty.

The fuck.

**

He knows it’s Sapohr. It has to be. 

Frank turns his ship back toward the station.

**

Being this angry is dangerous. 

Frank dissembles as best he can, laughing with station personnel about why he’s back, talking shit unhurriedly when he runs into a couple of the laborers who he’d hired earlier in the day. 

He takes a long looping route to Sapohr’s quarters, and overrides the door controls as quickly and quietly as he can, stepping into the dim living space.

It’s familiar, but some of the elements of Gerard’s drawings are definitely missing. The site-to-site transport rig is the most obvious absence. 

Not that Frank had doubts before, but that’s more than enough confirmation. 

He can hear someone moving around in the inner room. Probably Sapohr. No voices, and it sounds like whoever it is, they’re alone. Frank flattens himself against the wall to one side of the doorway, and waits. 

His plan, such as it is, is to jump Sapohr. He doesn’t have a weapon — not worth the risk to bring anything threatening onto the station — and he’s just going to need to hope that Sapohr doesn’t either. But the only way he’s got a chance of getting the upper hand while keeping the guy able to answer questions is to take him by surprise. 

Sapohr’s got to be nearly half a meter taller, but Frank’s got rage on his side. He breathes slowly and evenly, rolls his shoulders to stay loose, and waits. 

It's barely a moment later that there’s a loud banging on the door, followed closely by a yelled warning that the door is being opened by station security. 

Someone says “Fuck,” loud enough to carry, and someone else echoes it. Frank’s not sure if he was the speaker and Sapohr the echo, or vice versa. Fuck. Not that it matters. 

The door slides open, and the lights all come up to full power. 

Fuck.

**

Frank keeps his mouth shut while they’re hustled down to the brig level, and surprisingly, so does Sapohr. 

They're split up when they get there, taken through separate doors. The room Frank winds up in is small and looks like it might have started out as the anteroom to an office, featureless beyond the doors on two walls — the one he entered through, and one leading somewhere else. Frank picks one of the walls lacking a door to lean against and tries to think. 

He’s got nothing. No ideas, no plans. But they can't have anything on him either; he just needs to stay calm, wait for them to realize it, and get the hell out. 

He’s not sure how long he’s in the room before the door — the one that doesn’t lead back to the corridor — finally opens, and a young Bajoran man in a security uniform steps through. 

“Sir.” The kid nods at him, all business, and shakes open a sealable pouch. “Outer garment and the contents of your pockets into the pouch, please.”

Frank suppresses a sigh. He knows better than to say a word at this point. He’s definitely being recorded, and anything beyond silent cooperation is manipulable. He strips off his jacket, folds it into a bundle, and pushes it into the pouch opening. 

The kid stands there looking at him for a full minute of silence before he unbends a little and speaks again. “You’ve been scanned, sir. The contents of your pockets. All of your pockets.”

Shit. 

Frank digs everything out of his trouser pockets, then bends to pull open the hidden pocket behind the seam under his knee, where he’s got a spare ident card and credit chip, and the long narrow pocket hidden in his boot, where he keeps a small all-purpose scanning rig. He drops it all into the pouch.

The Bajoran kid looks satisfied, and folds over the top of the pouch, activating the seal, which glows a pale blue. “Press both thumbs here please, sir.”

Frank does, and the seal glows orange, then fades dark. 

“Your belongings will be scanned once again and held for you. Any items found to be contraband or otherwise extralegal will be noted in your records and discussed at your trial, if any. If you do not face trial and no items are found to be contraband or otherwise extralegal, they will be returned to you.” The kid rushes through the recitation a little, and opens the door, gesturing Frank through. 

There are two more fresh-faced Bajorans in security uniforms on the other side, women this time. Guards, he realizes, as they escort him to a cubicle two meters wide and four long, with three physical walls lined with deep padded benches and one long side open to the room. 

Frank stops outside the dark line on the floor that represents the open wall of the cubicle, just for a moment, and looks down at it. This isn’t his first cell, but it’s the first one in a while. 

“All the way in, sir,” one of the guards says. She doesn’t sound unfriendly, but she does sound like she isn’t going to give him a whole lot of leeway. He steps across the line and into the cell, and he hears the security field activate behind him. When he turns, the field is visible, a dim curtain of energy. 

The guards have already started to walk away. 

Frank pushes down his frustration and drops onto the bench, lying back and folding his arms over his face, trying to relax.

**

Frank has actually fallen asleep when he wakes to the sound of footsteps near his cell. 

It must have taken them a hell of a lot longer to screen Sapohr. Or maybe they spent the time interrogating him. He looks rumpled and frustrated; he’s missing his vestments, stripped down to plain close-fitting black trousers and a sleeveless black shirt. He’s barefoot, and his d’ah pagh is gone as well. Frank didn’t think they took that away from Bajorans, even in lockup; too culturally meaningful or something, they wore them all the time. 

It’s the same guards who led Frank in, but they don’t have to prompt Sapohr into the cell. He walks right in, as far as Frank can tell, since it’s the cell directly next to his and he doesn’t have much of a view once they get close. 

Frank waits a while, but he doesn’t hear anything else from next door. Eventually he falls back asleep.

**

“Hey! Hey, you there?” Sapohr’s been trying to get him to respond for a while now. There was a meal delivered, and that was enough to start him talking, it seems. Talking to the guards, spinning some kind of story about enemies of the Prophets and of the truth, talking to himself about the quality of the food, and trying to talk to Frank. Who isn’t fucking well going to answer. 

The food isn’t bad, actually. A little bland, but decent otherwise. 

“Come on, I know you’re there, and I know you’re conscious, they wouldn’t have left you food if you weren’t.” Sapohr pauses, then starts again, but this time while chewing. “So, let’s be pals. What’s your name?”

Frank takes another bite, and tries to think about something else. He doesn’t know enough about the situation to figure out how to get out of it, not yet. He still wants to know how Sapohr got the drop on him with the gold-pressed latinum, but the easiest way to get that answer is to ask him, and this is not the place or the time.

“We’re nearly roommates! I’m Gahril, but you might know that already, I don’t skulk around the way you do.” He stops speaking again, to let Frank answer or to eat some more, who knows. “Hey, did they give you the pink stuff, too? Looks like grain? It’s pretty good. I just feel like, you know, you’ve been in my quarters, I should know your name.”

Frank hadn’t tried the pink stuff yet. It _is_ pretty good. 

“Or, hey! If you don’t want to tell me your name, how about why the **fuck** you were in my quarters? How about **that**?”

Frank eats the last bite, and gets up to slide the tray back into its slot. 

Sapohr doesn’t speak again.

**

In the morning, the station's constable shows up, flanked by two guards. They’re not the same ones who were on duty the day before, and Frank feels a tiny bit of satisfaction that whatever Sapohr wasn’t going to be able to build of whatever he had been spinning at the prior two. 

Frank tries to look as out of his depth as he can when he realizes the constable — Odo, Frank did his research — is focused on him. It probably won’t help, not with this guy. It can’t hurt, though. 

Odo steps right up to the field, as close as possible. 

“Frank Anthony Iero. What’s your business on Deep Space Nine?”

Frank stands up as well. “Just travel. Um. Gambling, I like to gamble.”

Odo sighs. “And what’s your business breaking into private quarters?”

“I can’t answer that, sir, I haven’t broken into any private quarters.”

“Oh please. We have recordings of you overriding the lock and entering without permission. Not to mention that since we were preparing an arrest, I was in the hallway and watched you do it.”

Frank knows there was no one in the hallway, so he isn’t quite sure what Odo is playing at, but he keeps his mouth shut and sits back down. 

“Mister Iero. You should be aware that in addition to breaking and entering, we're prepared to charge you with conspiracy to grand larceny and conspiracy to traffick stolen goods. I suggest you consider the ways in which you might reduce those charges.”

Frank almost lets out a sigh of relief. He’s pretty certain he can beat conspiracy charges. Probably. Maybe not out here on the frontier, in a court that isn’t run by the Federation. Shit.

Odo has turned and walked out of sight — he’s in front of Sapohr’s cell. 

And now Frank knows why he was standing so close to the field; Frank can’t see him at all from his cell. It seems like a little thing, not being able to see the guy with the power in the room, but it isn’t. 

Odo doesn’t start speaking right away, so Sapohr does. His voice is low and serious, stern and arrogant. “You have no authority over me. I am Ranjen Sapohr, seeker of truth, bearer of the messages of the Prophets. I have done nothing wrong. My followers will demand my immediate release and recompense for this outrage.”

Odo holds his response just long enough that the silence is uncomfortable. 

“Gabriel Eduardo Saporta. What’s your business on Deep Space Nine?”

Frank buries his own face in his hands. The guy isn’t Bajoran? He looks back up when he hears the guy laugh. 

“Oh dang, you _are_ good.” He laughs again — _Saporta_ laughs again. “Same answer. Seeker of truth, at your service. Have been all my life, if you’ve ID’ed me then you know that already.”

“What I know, Mister Saporta, is that you have a number of convictions related to investment fraud, misrepresentation of goods, impersonation of Federation personnel, practicing law without a license, smuggling, and petty theft.” Odo pauses again; giving Saporta some rope. Saporta doesn’t take it. “Grand larceny and trafficking stolen goods are certainly both a step up, or down, for you. I suppose congratulations are in order.”

Saporta stays quiet for long enough that Frank thinks they’re done, except that Odo hasn’t moved back into view, and he has to in order to leave the room.

“You’ve got nothing,” Saporta drawls. “You’ve got nothing because the only things I’ve done here are get a little cosmetic surgery, gamble, and spread the word of the Prophets. You’ve. Got. Nothing.” 

Odo sighs again, and finally moves back into view, far enough from both cells that they must both be able to see him. 

“We’ve impounded both of your ships and everything aboard, as well as all quarters and storage spaces in your names. You may as well know now that we’ve recovered the gold-pressed latinum from between the primary and secondary hulls of your ship, Mister Saporta, and that we have done a full analysis of the sensor array you had camouflaged as a d’ja pagh.” Odo smiles a little. “I might remind you that knowingly carrying undeclared sensors into a gambling establishment is also a civil infraction.” 

Odo turns toward Frank. “Mister Iero, your transport array and diagrams of Quark’s, as well as your technical notes on that establishment’s safe have all been recovered from your quarters. We also have a reasonable suspicion that you also carried a sensor rig into a gambling establishment, whether or not the one that was removed from your person yesterday is powerful enough for any use there.”

Okay. Frank is fucked. He’s been set up. Saporta must have done it as soon as he stole Frank’s gold-pressed latinum and left it in his ship sitting in the dock like an amateur. No wonder that asshole has been convicted so many times; Frank’s never been more than a person of interest until now. 

He is so fucked.

**

Once Odo leaves, Saporta keeps trying to talk to Frank. Frank shouts him down until he finally shuts the fuck up.

**

Odo comes back, though, right after their midday meal arrives. This time he stops in the center of the room. 

“Whichever of you turns over the location of the latinum first will get limited immunity from some charges.” He looks annoyed, and his tone is clipped. 

“What?” Frank speaks before he thinks better of it. 

Odo looks at them each in turn. “As one or both of you are no doubt aware, while the gold matrix used to suspend the latinum into bricks has been recovered, the latinum itself has been removed.” He waits for one of them to talk again, but neither do. “I'm happy to say that doesn't reduce the charges against either of you. However, both the Federation and the Bajoran Republic, working with the Ferengi Alliance, would look favorably on information leading to the recovery of the latinum.”

He turns to leave, but only takes a few steps before he turns back. “I can guarantee you both that if the latinum is not recovered, the Ferengi Alliance will hold a grudge that will outlast your sentences, and that they are likely to consider that grudge profitable until they have the latinum back.”

Odo’s footsteps echo strangely as he walks out. It sounds much more portentous than it had earlier in the day.

**

“You set me up, you asshole.” Saporta hisses it before Frank can shut him up. 

Frank is starting to think they both got set up.

**

He almost expects it when the door to the brig opens again an hour after the evening meal, and Gerard walks in. His hair is all the colors of the sunset, streaks of orange and pink and red, tipped in violet and blue-black. His cosmetics are a soft red, and he’s wearing something severely cut in a stark black that’s so flat it’s difficult to focus on. His coat is like clouds around him. 

His face is tear-stained, and he looks between their cells like he isn’t sure which of them he should go to first. 

“Gee?” It’s Saporta’s voice, soft and a little unbelieving. 

Gerard looks between them again and starts to bite his nails. 

How is he still so lovely, wonders Frank. 

“Frank?” Gerard sounds a little broken, and like he might start crying again. “Gahril?” 

“Yeah, that’s not his name.” Frank says. “…Gee.”

“What?” Gerard turns back to Saporta. 

“It’s a long story, baby, I’m sorry. Gabe. My name’s Gabe.” 

“Not that long a story,” Frank snorts. 

Gerard turns back to Frank. “Are you okay? I woke up and you were gone, and I didn’t know what to think.”

Frank’s not quite sure what to think either.

“Baby, hey, Gee, sweetheart. Frankie’s gonna be fine, they’ve got nothing on him, don’t worry,” Gabe says. “I need your help though, sweetheart, somebody set me up.”

Frank kind of wishes he had Gabe’s faith in Frank’s future. But at least he doesn’t have Gabe’s naiveté. “Yeah, Gerard. Somebody set us both up.”

Gerard sniffles and looks at Frank, big eyes giving him a look so credulous that he’s kicking himself for ever falling for it. “Karjinko,” Gerard says. 

Karjinko. The dabo girl’s refrain: you lose. 

Damn, thinks Frank. Looks like you can con a con-man after all.

**

Gerard laughs, clearly delighted with himself. Saporta’s quiet; Frank can only guess that the penny finally dropped.

“I haven’t had this much fun on a job in I don’t know how long,” Gerard says. “You two were a challenge. And both so sweet.”

Gerard’s coat swirls as he moves, moving toward and away from his body, undulating up against the pull of gravity — but now that Frank is paying attention, the way Gerard clearly wants him to, he sees it. The material isn’t moving like fog anymore, but like water. The tiny repulsors are doing the same work, but the fabric itself is far heavier. The latinum. Stripped out of its gold binding and fed into the capillary matrix of the fabric itself. 

Frank can’t help but admire the sheer nerve it takes to carry that much stolen latinum — thousands of bars worth — around under the noses of the people you just stole it from. 

“Wow.” It’s Saporta, apparently not speechless anymore. “You. I don’t know what to say, Gee.”

Gerard turns toward Gabe’s cell and raises an eyebrow. Frank can’t believe right now, looking at him, that he ever thought Gerard’s eyes were anything but sharp with intelligence and hard with calculation. It’s — Frank can admit to himself, inside his own head — pretty fucking hot.

“Yeah,” Gabe drawls. “I’m still not quite sure what the hell you pulled off, I’m missing a couple of pieces, but I gotta say, Gee, you are truly fucking magnificent.”

Okay. Sounds like Frank and Saporta are on the same page here. 

Gerard smiles, brilliantly, at both of them in turn. “Frank. Gabe.” He pauses just long enough to confirm he’s got their attention. “The very first time I encountered the Ferengi, I learned something from them. I mean,” Gerard rubs a little at his jaw and tugs on his hair; Frank is a little relieved that the fidgeting wasn’t all pretense as well, “I have learned **a lot** from the Ferengi, I like quite a bit of their philosophy. It’s very practical.” He looks at them both again, and Frank nods, he’s listening. 

Gabe must nod too, because Gerard leans forward, just a little, enough to make his coat billow and crest again, and starts to speak. 

“Are either of you familiar with the Five Stages of Acquisition? No? They are,” and here Gerard spreads his fingers in the air to count: “infatuation, justification, appropriation, obsession, and resale.” He strokes his fingertips along his own shoulders, the one point at which the coat clings to his body. “Stage five is always a little bit of a letdown.”

Frank isn’t sure what to say, or if there is anything to say. Gabe is silent as well. 

Gerard sighs and twists a little at the hips, sending the coat back into unpredictable curves and swoops as it rides the motion and the air currents around his body. “I made some sacrifices, but those were things I wasn’t interested in acquiring anyway.”

Gerard’s looking at them, and Frank thinks that’s an awfully cold way to put it, but then Gerard starts to speak again.

“Your ships. Some clothes, some acquaintances. The likelihood that I’ll ever come back to this place. But you two. Acquiring both of you is something I’m interested in. And maybe that’s just stage two talking, but. Are you both amenable to that?” 

Frank’s grinning. If the team they made when two out of three of them didn’t even know they were a team was this good, then the sky is the limit. And he gets Gerard. And Gabe, well, Frank can see about coming around on Gabe.

Frank can hear Gabe saying yes, hissing at him to say yes too, but all he can do is nod. Damn, he’s lucky. 

Gerard is wearing the biggest, stupidest smile. “You two want to get out of here?”

Frank’s not sure if his answer matters, which is a good thing, because his vision is going silver from transport. Gerard is already — has already — broken them out. 

**

Gerard’s ship is small and fast and has the most powerful transporter system Frank (or Gabe, Frank asked him) has ever seen.

There’s only one bed, but they get by.

**Author's Note:**

> My only regret is that none of Gerard's backstory made it into this. (His Grandma was an Admiral in Starfleet! His parents both work as engineers on a big colony supply ship!)
> 
> Many thanks to my lovely beta, Jess.
> 
> My original plan was to get more of Gabe's pov in there as well, particularly dealing with his relationship to Judaism and his thoughts on the Bajoran faith. It didn't happen! But fyi there is some great thinking on the Faith of the Prophets out there: http://wrongquestions.blogspot.com/2008/02/back-through-wormhole-part-v-what-does.html; http://www.transpositions.co.uk/what-makes-a-god-wormhole-aliens-and-bajoran-religion/; https://tesseracts18.com/2014/07/06/bajorans-and-the-evolving-trek-view-of-faith/


End file.
